I was a little frustrated with this memoir, which was indeed, not a "tell-all," but a "tell-mine." Meaning that the author was very selective in what she revealed. I wasn't even sure who she was trying to help with this memoir of some of her feelings and experiences as she moved from married to separated to divorced. There was something very fuzzy about it all. On the other hand, as someone who has been through divorce, there were moments of recognition, of sharp and painful recollection of something that happened to me more than 20 years ago.

One thing that she did not discuss, or seem to recognize, was her husband's jealousy of her writing achievement as a published poet, teacher, and speaker. After all, they met in a writing group, both wanting to be writers. He became a lawyer, a professional but not someone who makes his liviing as a creative person. His complaints about her being away from home seemed to be more to do with his jealousy than anything else. ( )

This is a poignant memoir of the dissolution of the author's marriage. She brings all of her poetic skills to demonstrating the cycles of grief, pain, mourning, and healing that comes with loss. Her meditations reveal the personal aspects of her experiences without divulging the private aspects. In doing so, some of the personal becomes universal. The gender inequality of the invisible labor in the home, including the emotional work of parenting children is one of the universal aspects.

I found the writing engaging and powerful and appreciated the author's ability to work around the issue of loss and create something whole in the end. ( )

A very personal, poignant and moving memoir about her divorce, written in short, sometimes even one line, chapters. Some reviews on other sites had a hard time with her authorial intrusions, e.g. "Reader, I'm not going to tell you everything." I found this narrative device, as well as the occasional chapters in third person narration of a play, intrusive and slightly irritating, but (and I may not be correct about this) I attributed these shifts as Smith's own psychological need to briefly distance herself from all the honest pain she was recounting. And so I'll subtract just half a star, as I struggled with the distancing these devices created in me. ( )

A memoir written by a poet, filled with patterns and looping motifs, an awareness of literary elements from poetry, drama, and fiction ("a note on character"); she sometimes envisions herself as being in a play, playing the role of the "finder": a wife who finds a postcard to another woman in her husband's briefcase, leading, eventually, to divorce. She writes about her marriage, her work, her miscarriages, her children, social media, therapy, the pandemic, the experience of having a viral poem ("Good Bones"). She writes with honesty but tells the reader when she is holding back. Quotes from other creatives are scattered throughout.

Quotes/notes

"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself" -Emily Dickinson (epigraph)

This is not a tell-all, it is a tell-mine

The truth is simple but it is not easy

Narrative is knowledge about the future (Sarah Ruhl)

A friend says every book begins with an unanswerable question. Then what is mine?

A note on foreshadowing

inciting incidents

betrayal is neat

"Good Bones" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/good-bones)

the past is gone but we carry it with us

nesting dolls

what happens if you don't process what has happened to you?

"Picture of My Dress" (Mountain Goats) ( )

Smith is a poet and her craft is wonderfully on display in this memoir about the breakdown of her marriage. She explores the gender inequality of invisible labor, but does so with not a technical term in sight. It’s more about finding yourself when you are lost, and how disorienting that process can be. I finished the book with a sense of hope, and a desire to grab a beer with the author and continue the conversation. ( )